History of Europe

The organization of late imperial Christianity

Many Roman provincials were Christian higher clergy. Between the legalization of Christianity by Constantine about 313 and the adoption of Christianity as the legal religion of Rome by the emperor Theodosius I in 380, Christian communities received immense donations of land, labour, and other gifts from emperors and wealthy converts. The Christian clergy, originally a body of community elders and managerial functionaries, gradually acquired sacramental authority and became aligned with the grades of the imperial civil service. Each civitas (community or city), an urban unit and its surrounding district, had its bishop (from ... (100 of 166,997 words)